


Dona Nobis Pacem

by JessaLRynn



Series: Gloria In Excelsis [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Christmas, Gen, Holidays, Inspired by Music, Team Free Will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 03:22:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5650729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessaLRynn/pseuds/JessaLRynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While searching for his Father, Castiel has a moment of doubt, and finds timely inspiration in an unlikely source.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dona Nobis Pacem

Castiel was on the Isle of Malta, searching for his Father within the ranks of the descendants of the Knights of St. John when the bright, joyful clamor of bells brought his attention abruptly back to the rest of the world. He frowned, confused, as an age-old hymn burst gladly across the quiet streets of the old city, and then bells from the cathedrals, bells from hundreds of churches, began to chorus in answer to the sunrise song. 

It wasn't the top of the hour, nor did Castiel recall hearing church bells ringing for any other purpose he knew, at least not this many, with such exuberance. It took him a few moments of consideration and memory, a few long, deep thoughts, to realize what he was hearing.

It was Christmas Day, the angel realized, the ancient winter holiday conscripted by Christians to mark an event that Castiel alone of all the Host of Heaven was too young to remember. Time had all been bundled together in the Heaven of the beginning of ages, all the events that happened to the world being done before the world was made, which was Castiel's first memory, of Gabriel's caution about a small, incongruous fish.

Searching for his Father, a creator he had never met, had caused Castiel to lose track of time, to lose track of everything but the occasional prayer of Dean Winchester's righteous soul, crying out almost in spite of himself. "We're alive, Cas, we're in Richmond, where the hell are you?" "It's 4:30 on a Thursday morning, Cas, and I'm worried about Sam," and, in his more profane and considerably less sober moments, "You should check the Gas-n-Sip in Reston, Idaho. Crazy chick swears there's an angel at the cash register some days, so maybe that one knows where your Dad's hiding."

He had been at this for months, Castiel realized abruptly. He'd stopped briefly, to help in the ruinous hunt for Lucifer, paused, perhaps, when he was needed as the only angel on the side of free will, but he'd circled the globe more than a few times, now, to absolutely no avail. The bells played "Sleep and Cry No More", a cradle carol like a lullaby, and Castiel was not comforted.

It was madness, to chase a God who had never been found, a Father perhaps dead, or at least dead to him. Anna had told him, more than once, that only the Archangels had ever seen God face to face, and she must have told the truth, because Uriel and Inias and Hester all agreed with her, back before she had fallen, and even now. And Raphael, one of the four, had told him personally that God was dead. Lucifer, too, seemed to think their Father was gone forever, done with them, with all of this. 

Sam was going to say yes, forcing Dean's hand, and the world would die in flames, and that would be the end to it. Lucifer, win or lose, would destroy all the Earth in his rage, and Michael, half-mad with grief and self-righteousness, would wipe out anything Lucifer accidentally left standing. And their Father... would say nothing.

As orphaned as a Winchester, and as homeless, too, why should Castiel search, here or anywhere, for a God who wasn't there to be found?

The world was so dark, death upon death, fighting, tortures, tiny daily murders and great earth-shaking massacres, lies upon lies upon greedy, blasphemous, hateful lies. The human race that God loved so deeply had become a nightmare child of unfallen demons and unrisen victims. The whole Earth had become utterly black with despair, and then the Apocalypse had begun. Perhaps Raphael was right, and perhaps this was all the proof the Archangels needed.

Grief ripped Castiel from the Isle, and fear billowed his wings as he tore, unseen, across the skies. Sorrow weighted his feet and dragged him to land, and it was the empty ache within him that he brought, all he had left, to the only place where he hoped someone could tell him what to do with it.

The somber little church was hung with the wilting limbs of fragrant pines. All around the sanctuary, gaudy, crooked chains of paper cut from Christmas cards past hung, the bittersweet ghosts of holidays gone by. It was pale and dim, only a few weary souls about at this hour. A large, grim-looking family occupied one side of the room, an old man with a tyrant's proud glare presiding over the fidgeting youths and nearly-nodding adults. An elderly woman with a sad, lost stare sat in the front on the other side, a waif-like young woman holding to her hand with a cast of dread in her eyes. The priest, young and already balding, gazed with jaded, lonely eyes on his small congregation. And Sam Winchester and his sulking brother, Dean, occupied the very back bench and lurked.

Someone's bones would be burnt before the morning sun rose, as the Winchester brothers laid another wandering, broken soul to rest. This was their Christmas gift to the world: one more sliver of peace, one more scrap of nightmares cast down. This, and their willful, transcendent refusal to become the drawn swords of Archangels was all they had to give.

Castiel fit himself, silent and invisible, into the space beside Sam, since Dean occupied the exit of the row, arms folded over his broad chest, eyes making quick, careful sweeps of the room. A thready, flat piano chimed with the faintest hint of dissonance into a tinny melody and Sam raised a hymnal, offering with a gesture to share it with Dean. The look he got in answer was so black as to be nearly comical in the depth of its disdain.

The hymn was old - they almost always were these days, Castiel had discovered - but this one struck a particularly harsh chord within the angel, and he listened, because the hymn began where he did, today, with the bells on Christmas day. The song was warm and sweet, and Sam sang along in a quiet, but surreal baritone. He had an acceptable voice, warm and darkly serene, not so fine nor so fair as that of the angel he was meant to house, but firm and, in this instance, shining. 

There was a quiet faith about Sam in this moment, as he sang old words, a kind of majestic grandeur that Castiel had sensed once, a long time ago, when first he’d met “the boy with the demon blood”. Sam Winchester was a good man, a true and honest man, stubborn and young and unwise, but earnest and faithful, and it shone, on his eyes and in his face and, brightly, from his soul in a place like this. 

Dean, of course, always glimmered, the most vivid light in all the world, an untarnishable soul strong enough to crush back the darkness in Hell itself even when it had been torn in twain. As fine as his face, as fierce as his heart, so blindingly brilliant were the rays Dean Winchester cast over the shadows of the end of days. 

But here, in the face of the trust and the love of God the Father, Dean faltered. Just like Castiel and just like the song, he despaired: there was no peace on Earth, there was no hope, there was no mercy, there was nothing. “For hate is strong,” the righteous man sang with the song, his hand balled into a grief-convulsed fist, “and mocks the song…” His voice was angry, even as he reluctantly let the old tune part his lips, and Castiel understood, and raged, and hated, with his battered friend, every dark thing that made this world its home.

It was Sam’s voice, again, that rang out the next verse, strong and true, more pure and certain than all the angels of heaven, more sure than all the voices of all the choirs of prayer an angel could hear. “God is not dead,” he assured, “nor does He sleep.” There was a conviction to that, a peace and acceptance that neither Dean nor Castiel could summon, but it was Sam’s, easily, as simple and true as gravity or the coming of the dawn. “The wrong shall fail, the right prevail…”

Dean looked at his brother, and there was hope in those bitter green eyes, the hope of all the world, lain still and trusting at the feet of the corrupted vessel of the Fallen Angel. The trust was deeper than the hope, the conviction that everyone would be saved, because if anyone like Sam could believe, then all the world should, and all of the angels must.

Castiel saw then, more clearly than he had ever even imagined he’d seen it before, that it was both right and just that Dean should love his brother so. That Sam could summon such faith, such hope, in the world the way he had been tricked into making it, was proof enough that perhaps there was a right thing, and very probably they were doing it. People mattered, life mattered, and second chances, they mattered, too.

He didn’t hear the rest of the midnight Mass, the precious epiphany echoing through his grace instead, entwining his thoughts, gentling his fears. God is not dead, the right will prevail: a message given when needed, an answer to the prayers of an angel.

“The Mass is ended,” the Priest said, his smile radiating kindness through his weariness. “Let us go in peace.”

“Are you happy now?” Dean demanded, and Cas had learned him well enough now to know that Dean was actually somewhat amused by his brother’s faith. Sometimes, he even found it heartening.

The angel reached out silently and found the spirit they sought, and gently made open the way, a task meant perhaps for better angels, but he was the one who was here. The room became lighter, brighter, maybe for the spirit’s departure, but maybe for the choices of the mortal boys stubbornly saving a world that would never know them. For himself, Castiel listened to them banter, and when he was sure no one was looking, joined them on the mortal plane.

“Glad you could make it, Cas,” said Dean, his touch somewhere between a handshake and a hug. Castiel had learned that the touch meant inclusiveness, and he had come to realize that, for Dean at least, Castiel was one of them now.

Maybe he didn’t even need a father, anymore than they did. After all, they had Bobby Singer, which was where they intended to go once their task was completed. Castiel stopped them to let them know there was no more need for burning bones, that no more living souls would suffer from the anguish of the departed one.

The priest had come to join them, now, baffled perhaps by loiterers at so late - or early - a Mass. Sam, cheerful and kind, spoke words that were literal solace to the man, and Castiel could see his face and soul both brightening, as thoroughly as if he’s met an archangel himself. Dean, oddly happier now as well, was a quick handshake and a “thanks, Padre,” to the door in minutes.

The angel lingered just a moment. “Thank you,” he said, and because the man could see it, and because he perhaps needed it, showed a bit of himself, furled wisps of wings and grace through the room.

He left the Priest speechless and in tears, joining Dean and Sam in the foyer and knowing at once that they too had felt his true being. Sam was silent and contemplative as they stepped into the freezing night, watching Castiel as if it was Sam’s privilege to know the angel, when really it was Castiel who was the blessed and lucky one here.

Even awestruck, though, Dean couldn’t take anything seriously for more than a few seconds, and Castiel knew again that the man was hard to love and worth it at once. The older hunter was laughing and throwing snowballs in the parking lot before he’d even recovered from the latest touch of heaven to his soul. “C’mon, Cas,” he shouted, as he skidded away from his startled, snow-pelted brother. “We’re having Christmas Whatever at the Waffle House. We’ll buy you coffee.”

“Dean!” Sam protested, chucking loose packed snow ineffectively after his brother.

Castiel nodded acceptance of this generous offer and popped into the back seat of the Impala a microsecond before another snowball would have been splattered across his trenchcoat.

The brothers were chilled and soggy around the edges when they joined him, but this was what life was really for. The song that the radio played had different words than Sam was caroling as soon as it came on, and Dean had a story about it that he shouted out in one and two sentence snippets as Sam sang. Castiel hung on every moment, wishing it was forever, him and two boys, off to the Waffle House, and then to visit an old drunk. Dashing through the snow, as Sam sang, in a four-door Chevrolet.

This was why the world existed, after all, why humans had families of blood and choice and both. This was why his Father had created the world, and this was why they were going to save it. For this, for fun and peace and laughter, for hope. For love.


End file.
